By Myles Palmer
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Portugal 0 Greece 1
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Charisteas 57
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IT WAS OBVIOUS that the goal would come from a free-kick or a corner.
All along, I thought that would happen.
But I forgot to mention it in my previews.
GREECE beat France, Czech Republic, and Portugal twice, so they deserve to be European Champions.
Good luck to them !
After 57, a right wing corner, attacking the near post, Charisteas muscled Costinha out of it and headed in.
Keeper Ricardo was nowhere.
Off his line, AWOL, nowhere near the ball, a clown.
Some pundits had Ricardo in their teams of the tournament !
PORTUGAL were good in the first ten minutes and Miguel, the unmarked player as I expected, bombed forward a lot and had a good shot saved.
When Miguel went off injured, Portugal lost a lot of dynamism.
And since they lack dynamism anyway, his absence was catastrophic.
The reason they lack dynamism is : they all want 3 or 5 or 7 touches on the ball.
Their labourious style was never gonna break down the massed defence of the Greeks.
RUI COSTA came on for Costinha and improved things a lot in the second half.
The tempo was better, but shooting glimpses of goal were few.
Ultimately, Figo was too old and Ronaldo was too young.
If Figo was 27 and Ronaldo was 23 they would have ripped Greece to shreds.
At 31 and 19, that was asking too much.
WHEN EURO 2004 started, I thought it was about who could give France a game.
Tonight demonstrated clearly that Euro 2004 was, in fact, all about who could give Greece a game.
AND NOBODY COULD GIVE GREECE A GAME !
Without Vieira, France quit, pathetically.
Without Nedved, the Czechs ran out of ideas and hope.
Most finals are not great games – and this was like most finals.
Portugal did not play well enough. They did not play well enough to deserve to win.
Champions?
You have to play like champions, for half a match, or half an hour at least – and they never did
I reckoned they would play 30% better than they did, and shade it.
Maybe with a free-kick.
BUT I WAS WRONG, BIG TIME.
The whole thing was a colossal anti-climax.
Indeed, I found it hard to get into the game. Having done a preview, I had stopped thinking about it.
Having been forced to decide what I think the day before, and written it down, I forget about a game, until it kicks off.
This final was not compelling, didn’t draw me in, didn’t lift me, didn’t ever convince me that something thrilling would happen in five minutes time, or ten.
After 12 minutes, I could see Portugal reverting to type, becoming the powderpuff pretty footballers of yesteryear, of the pre-Big Phil era.
Portugal needed to score first. But they couldn’t.
They went through the whole game without being able to win a free-kick in a dangerous position, let alone a series of free-kicks in dangerous positions, as I expected.
There was no tempo until the last 20 minutes, first time passes were rare, no real pressure was put on Greek defenders, who marked and tackled well, and played the ball out very neatly at times.
THE GOAL was a farce, the kind of incident that drives coaches nuts.
Right wing corner, an outswinger, feeble defending, keeper calamitously positioned, Charisteas thinks all his birthdays have come at once, and heads the winner from six yards.
Nobody could give Greece a game.
That is what it boils down to.
NOBODY COULD GIVE GREECE A GAME !!!!
Faced by tenacious warriors, keeping their defensive discipline, the French, the Czechs and the Portuguese allowed themselves to be worn down, roughed up and disheartened.
THE BBC, parochial as ever, allowed Lineker to do a patriotic piece on What Might Have Been.
Face it, Gary : England would not have given Greece a game either.
One free-kick, one corner, any old set-piece, and Engerland would have conceded a goal, as they have done in every game for the last 18 months.
Greece would have beaten England 1- 0.
July 4th 2004